Current economic,
environmental and energy constraints often do not make it possible to add
additional servers in the data center to align with the demands of the
business. As a result, companies are looking to consolidate workloads on
fewer servers to reclaim the underutilized capacity, lower the total cost of
ownership and simplify data center management. Virtualization technologies,
like VMware, on larger platforms such as the HP ProLiant DL785 G6 are key to
improving server utilization.

HP
ProLiant DL785 G6,
with 48 processing cores, up to 512 GB memory and 11 PCI-e I/O ports, provides
ample resources for very large number of virtual machines and offers a very
high consolidation and virtualization ratio. The new world-record VMMark benchmark result with 53.73
score while running 210 virtual machines proves that the HP ProLiant DL785 G6 is ideal
for virtualization and consolidation environments. The industry x-86 workhorse
beats the nearest 8-socket competitor by almost 58% on VMMark benchmark.

DL785 G6
shows increased scalability with the new AMD Opteron processors. As compared to
the previous result on DL785 G5 (with 8 Quad-Core processors), the DL785 G6
(with 8 six-core processors) showed 70.2% increased performance. I have been
asked this question many times – what makes DL785 G6 or other multi-processor
ProLiant servers with the new six-core Opteron processors run more than 50%
faster than the previous generation G5 servers with AMD quad core processors?

HT Assist
helps reduces memory latency, improves HyperTransport bus efficiency and
increases overall system performance in multi-processor systems by reducing the
probe traffic and resolving probes quickly. It can eliminate the probe
broadcasting in 8 out of 11 typical CPU-to-CPU transactions in a
multi-processor system like DL785 G6.

This
unparalleled virtualization leadership is demonstrated in the AMD video featuring HP ProLiant DL785
G6 running 180 VMs! AMD will have this demo live at their booth (#1408)
at VMWorld, August 31-September 3rd 2009.

Please
join us in the HP Booth (#2023) at VMWorld to see the ProLiant G6 servers,
including DL785 G6, and a showcase of a wide variety of server, storage and
networking virtualization solutions.

HPTF showcased an overwhelming amount of demos, sessons, cool techies stuff everywhere you looked. Twitter crept into the scene this year with ten monitors showcasing all of the tweet buzz. ProLiant was certainly shouted about from every corner. One shout that caught my attention was the ProLiant Collection released 25 platforms in 73 days! I heard one key competitor released 6 in that time frame. ProLiant delivering on all three technology advances: performance, efficiencies, and cost savings - serious improvements in all three areas, each without compromising the other.

Key take-aways on the SL6000

HP’s Doug Tucker walked me through the features of the SL line in easy terms. The SL features front-end cabling and easy serviceability – just pull out the tray. The 2U design supports 2 expansion trays. With the SL,you have a good choice of mix & match configs.

Key take-aways on the DL1000

“Powerful, dense & versatile” – states Christina Tiner from HP. This family delivers improved density, power efficiency & cost. It has similar features of the new SL line. The DL1000 for 10-100 servers, SL for 10000s of servers.

Christina mentions customers are looking to the DL1000 for virtualization deployments in a 2U, as well as for HPC environments. The DL1000 is great for 2 -3 workgroups with little space, for general purpose apps, space saving deployments - good consolidation in a traditional rack mount setting. This family is also more flexible than SL – IO expansion, 3PCI slots, graphics controllers.

Today, AMD is introducing their new Six-Core AMD Opteron "Istanbul" processors. For our customers, the performance gains of AMD's new chip combined with the innovations around energy efficiency, virtualization and management of our new ProLiant G6 platform will enable them to get more value from every IT dollar they spend.

We are really excited about Istanbul and you can bet that we'll be introducing new AMD-based rack, tower and blade servers in very short order. We could have just dropped the new chip in to existing servers, but that wouldn't have allowed our customers to take full advantage of the power of Istanbul. So, instead you'll see that we've innovated around Istanbul to deliver systems that lead the industry on price/performance.

The performance gains and power efficiency of these new ProLiant G6 systems can also have a significant impact on the bottom line. In fact, replacing the single-core systems with new ProLiant G6 systems, customers can see a pay-back on their investment of right around 3-months. This is due to the combination of lower energy bills, increased computing capability of each server and fewer software licenses required to do the same amount of work.

AMD's execution was nothing short of flawless. Once again, they delivered ahead of schedule. And right around the corner you'll see a full suite of Istanbul server products from HP.

Delisa Johnson currently leads successful, corporate events for HP Servers and is established as the go-to person for business unit communications regarding launches, executive meetings, wins and business updates.

I am a member of the Enterprise Group Global Marketing team blogging on topics of interest for HP Servers. Check out blog posts on all four Server blog sites-Reality Check, The Eye on Blades, Mission Critical Computing and Hyperscale Computing- for exciting news on the future of compute.

Luke Oda is a member of the HP's BCS Marketing team. With a primary focus on marketing programs that support HP's BCS portfolio. His interests include all things mission-critical and the continuing innovation that HP demonstrates across the globe.

I work in the HP Servers marketing group, managing a marketing team responsible for marketing solutions for enterprise customers who run mission-critical workloads and depend on HP to keep their business continuously running.